Thirty breathtakes
by Miss Halfway
Summary: The story of Kate and Sawyer's relationship through thirty vignettes. Reviewing doesn't cause infertility.
1. Hold your breath

**Title: **_Hold your breath_.

**Rating: **PG.

**Character: **Sawyer, Kate/Sawyer.

**Summary: **_She's gone; she's gone and it's not really your fault, but you can't help feeling it is. Like your parents: it was neither your fault (it was hers, hers and his), but you still feel it is._

**N/A: **written for 30breathtakes's #21 **scent; musk; perfume; cologne**.

**Disclaimer:** Lost and its characters do not belong to me.

Reviewing doesn't cause infertility.

* * *

She's gone; she's gone and it's not really your fault, but you can't help feeling it is. Like your parents: it was neither your fault (it was hers, hers and his), but you still feel it is.

You roam in bed, small and golden rays of sun entering through the window, laying on your face, waking you up even if you don't want to open your eyes, because it'd mean too much effort. It's a new day and you don't want to live it, you don't want to leave the comfortable, reliable safety of your cotton sheets, still impregnated of her scent. You prefer to roll over your own shit.

At least it's consoling.

However, a time comes in which you don't find any more solace in inhaling the floating rests of her perfume, over and over again, like some kind of cocaine addict calling for the stuff that would give him the peace he desperately needs. So you wash the sheets, the pillow, the blankets, trying to remove her smell. Spicy, musk, just like her. One day you had her, and a blinking after she was gone. But her presence is still here, with you, and no matter how hard you attempt to make it disappear, it'll be always there.

Trust me, forgetting has never been easy.

There's only one thing left you can do. Roll on the sheets, covered with memories of her, the one who left you behind, look for her scent in the bedding and, when you find it, hold your breath.

Stop breathing at all.


	2. The same feline glance

**Title: **_The same feline glance_.

**Rating: **PG.

**Character: **Sawyer, Kate/Sawyer. Mentions of Danielle, Shannon.

**Summary: **_So when they finally locked eyes, it was just for a second, a brief moment stuck in time, shorter than the flapping of the Brazilian butterfly, but enough for him to ensure she still had those astonishingly green eyes._

**N/A: **written for 30breathtakes's #31, in the silence of the night.

Based on a fragment of _Cómo hablar_ by Amaral: _Nos dijimos adiós y pasaron los años; volvimos a vernos una noche de sábado. Otro país, otra ciudad, otra vida, pero la misma mirada felina. _(We said goodbye and the years went by; we saw each other again on a Saturday night. Another country, another city, another life, but the same feline glance)

Very AU: it assumes the idea of Kate never going back to the island and Sawyer finally managing to get off it.

**Disclaimer:** Lost and its characters do not belong to me.

Reviewing doesn't cause infertility.

* * *

James looked down at his glass of bourbon, still half full, and stirred it, golden and caramel waves gently drowning the ice cubes inside. He was sitting at the bar of the saloon he used to go every single night since he arrived at Orly's airport, nearly two months ago and, as every single night before, he was on his own. He felt he was surrounded by some kind of menacing aura that drove people away.

_Doomed to be alone__ since his almost magical return to life._

He didn't know why he had chosen Paris in the first place. It could be because all the French chicks were said to be beautiful and amazing in bed (or at least the ones who he had slept with). Even Danielle, he remembered, must had been gorgeous in her youth. You just had to take a look at her daughter.

Maybe it was the powerful influence of the Eiffel Tower, an immense phallus standing out from the rest of the buildings.

_Bad thoughts for an all alone Saturday night._

But who cared anyway.

Calmly, he finished the drink and ordered a shot of absinthe (damnit, he was in Paris. He had to have one) with a listless gesture of his hand. While the barman was serving it, he let his eyes wander all around the saloon and quickly glimpsed something (someone) that shouldn't be there. But when he tried to find it (her) once again, it had disappeared.

He came back to his new glass, a teaspoon and a sugar lump carefully placed on top of it, and took his beloved Zippo out of the pocket of his jacket, smelling of old leather and long time no recalled memories and sorrows he'd rather had drown.

A deep-rooted song by Edith Piaf was coming out of the jukebox, adding a bit of French charm to the saloon, while the sugar cube burned, melted and finally fell into the absinthe. As downing the shot in one go, James thought how good would it be to decipher what her hoarse, sensual voice was singing and regretted his null knowledge of the language, or at least not having Sticks by his side.

"What's the title of this song?" he asked to the barman, the absinthe burning his throat with no clemency.

"It's _Je ne regrette rien_, sir" answered the man, as he cleaned one of the dirty tumblers that were starting to conquer the other side of the bar. "It means _I don't regret anything_"

James laughed bitterly, playing with the rests of the liquefied sugar left in the bottom of the glass. The green ambrosia still threw waves of fire all the way up his oesophagus, scratching like sandpaper.

_He found it comforting, the __ache. It was something he was used to. Something that reminded him of his past life. Something to rely on._

Yet again, his glance wandered through the room, searching for that something (someone) that had caught his eye before. He found it (her) sitting at the back of the saloon, dark curls outlining her never forgotten features, quietly in front of a guy that looked so incredibly French (smart and enchanting and Casanova).

He also looked much younger than him, he checked, feeling a little stab of pain piercing his chest.

James gulped brusquely and tried to avoid the inevitable eye contact, focusing his tipsy mind on controlling the tremor of his hands. But he couldn't help it.

So when they finally locked eyes, it was just for a second, a brief moment stuck in time, shorter than the flapping of the Brazilian butterfly, but enough for him to ensure she still had those astonishingly green eyes.

_The same feline glance._

Her expression was as impassive as a mask, a disguise in which she danced around (she had always done that) in the middle of the big, insane masquerade of her life. His life. Their life.

Breathless, he stood up as fast as he could, sliding a few coins and a note towards the barman. He smiled back, but James didn't see it because he was already out of the saloon, trying to recover his breath with the unkind slap of the cold Parisian night.

A second after, she was by his side. She had left the French fellow without a word (she had never been good at saying goodbye), and there she was, staring at him intensely, no smile breaking the immutability of her face.

There were no words of grief, no 'I'm sorry', no 'I've missed you', no 'I love you'. There was only a hopeless, furious, deep desperation when their lips touched for the first time in what seemed ages, the closeness of her skin giving back warmth to his body, a body that had remained dead and empty for years, since that fateful day in which he watched how she went in the helicopter, and then how it took off, destroying everything that was left on the island.

_Including him, of course._


End file.
